Some Alabama Republicans are proposing a change to the state constitution to require that some elected state and local officials are born in the United States.
Senate Bill 21 would change or put a new citizenship requirement on constitutional offices and others, effectively banning naturalized citizens.
For example, right now, candidates for Alabama governor or lieutenant governor must be citizens of the U.S. for 10 years prior to taking office. The proposed constitutional amendment in Senate Bill 21 would require them to be born in the U.S.
The same would apply to members of the Alabama Legislature, and the state attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, treasurer, and commissioner of agriculture and industries. The proposal also applies to: state board of education members; justices on the Alabama Supreme Court; state civil and criminal appeals court judges; district and circuit court judges; district attorneys; and sheriffs.
The proposal comes from Secretary of State Wes Allen, who is running for lieutenant governor in 2026.
“For the same reasons our founding fathers sought to ensure that our nation’s leader was a natural born American citizen, we believe the same standard must be required of those operating in the highest levels of our state government,” Allen said in a written statement. “I am confident that the vast majority of Alabamians join us in wanting to strengthen our state Constitution to put Alabama first and to counteract any potential future influence from abroad.”
Sen. Donnie Chesteen, R-Geneva, is sponsoring the bill in the Senate. Rep. Rhett Marques, R-Enterprise, will sponsor it in the House.
“This legislation would put that question to a vote of the people of Alabama for their ultimate decision,” Marques, who is running for Congress in Alabama’s 1st District, told Alabama Daily News. “I am confident that the overwhelming majority of Alabamians will agree with this proposal as we are seeing a trend of more and more foreign-born citizens running for constitutional offices, including in our neighboring state of Georgia.”
Not all Republicans are behind the proposal. Former Congressman Mo Brooks, R-Huntsville, wrote a column last week for Al.com criticizing the proposal, saying it discriminates against foreign-born citizens and will “turn these voters into second class citizens who will then be reliably depended on to hate the GOP and bloc-vote Democrat.”
He also argued the born citizenship requirement for U.S. president and vice-president was put in place in 1789 when “there was a real concern a foreign-born President or Vice-President elected by an uninformed populace might have more loyalty to his birth country than America.”
Constitutional amendments require approval by Alabama voters. If the legislation is approved in the upcoming legislative session, it will be on voters’ Nov. 3, 2026 ballots.